Part 945

"Samuel J. Mills organized at Williams College, in 1808, for missionary work, an undergraduate society, which was soon transferred to Andover, and resulted in the establishment of the American Bible Society and Board of Foreign Missions. But the topic which engrossed Mills' most enthusiastic attention was the Negro. The desire was to better his condition by founding a colony between the Ohio and the Lakes; or later, when this was seen to be unwise, in Africa. On going to New Jersey to continue his theological studies, Mills succeeded in interesting the Presbyterian clergy of that State in his project. Of this body one of the most prominent members was Dr. Robert Finley. Dr. Finley succeeded in assembling at Princeton the first meeting ever called to consider the project of sending Negro colonists to Africa. Although supported by few save members of the seminary, Dr. Finley felt encouraged to set out for Washington in December 1816, to attempt the formation of a colonization society. Earlier in this same year there had been a sudden awakening of Southern interest in colonization. … The interest already awakened and the indefatigable efforts of Finley and his friend Colonel Charles Marsh, at length succeeded in convening the assembly to which the Colonization Society owes its existence. It was a notable gathering. Henry Clay, in the absence of Bushrod Washington, presided, setting forth in glowing terms the object and aspirations of the meeting. … John Randolph of Roanoke, and Robert Wright of Maryland, dwelt upon the desirability of removing the turbulent free-negro element and enhancing the value of property in slaves. Resolutions organizing the Society passed, and committees appointed to draft a Constitution and present a memorial to Congress. … With commendable energy the newly organized Society set about the accomplishment of the task before it. Plans were discussed during the summer, and in November two agents, Samuel J. Mills and Ebenezer Burgess, sailed for Africa to explore the western coast and select a suitable spot. … Their inspection was carried as far south [from Sierra Leone] as Sherbro Island, where they obtained promises from the natives to sell land to the colonists on their arrival with goods to pay for it. In May they embarked on the return voyage. Mills died before reaching home. His colleague made a most favorable report of the locality selected, though, as the event proved, it was a most unfortunate one. After defraying the expenses of this exploration the Society's treasury was practically empty. It would have been most difficult to raise the large sum necessary to equip and send out a body of emigrants; and the whole enterprise would have languished and perhaps died but for a new impelling force. … Though the importation of slaves had been strictly prohibited by the Act of Congress of March 2, 1807, no provision had been made for the care of the unfortunates smuggled in in defiance of the Statute. They became subject to the laws of the State in which they were landed; and these laws were in some cases so devised that it was profitable for the dealer to land his cargo and incur the penalty. The advertisements of the sale of such a cargo of 'recaptured Africans' by the State of Georgia drew the attention of the Society and of General Mercer in particular to this inconsistent and abnormal state of affairs. His profound indignation shows forth in the Second Annual Report of the Society, in which the attention of the public is earnestly drawn to the question; nor did he rest until a bill was introduced into the House of Representatives designed to do away with the evil. This bill became a law on March 3, 1819. … The clause which proved so important to the embryo colony was that dealing with the captured cargoes: 'The President of the United States is hereby authorized to make such regulations and arrangements as he may deem expedient for the safe-keeping, support, and removal beyond the limits of the United States, of all such negroes, mulattoes, or persons of color as may be so delivered and brought within their jurisdiction; and to appoint a proper person or persons residing upon the coast of Africa as agent or agents for receiving the negroes, mulattoes, or persons of color, delivered from on board vessels seized in the prosecution of the slave trade by commanders of the United States armed vessels.' The sum of $100,000 was appropriated for carrying out the provisions of the Act. President Monroe determined to construe it as broadly as possible in aid of the project of colonization. After giving Congress, in his message, December 20, 1818, fair notice of his intention, no objection being made, he proceeded to appoint two agents, the Rev. Samuel Bacon, already in the service of the Colonization Society, and John P. Bankson as assistant, and to charter the ship Elizabeth. The agents were instructed to settle on the coast of Africa, with a tacit understanding that the place should be that selected by the Colonization Society. … For the expenses of the expedition $33,000 was placed in the hands of Mr. Bacon. Dr. Samuel A. Crozier was appointed by the Society as its agent and representative; and 86 negroes from various states—33 men, 18 women, and the rest children, were embarked. On the 6th of February, 1820, the Mayflower of Liberia weighed anchor in New York harbor, and, convoyed by the U. S. sloop-of-war Cyane, steered her course toward the shores of Africa. The pilgrims were kindly treated by the authorities at Sierra Leone, where they arrived on the 9th of March; but on proceeding to Sherbro Island they found the natives had reconsidered their promise, and refused to sell them land. While delayed by negotiations the injudicious nature of the site selected was disastrously shown. The low marshy ground and the bad water quickly bred the African fever, which soon carried off all the agents and nearly a fourth of the emigrants. The rest, weakened and disheartened, were soon obliged to seek refuge at Sierra Leone. In March, 1821, a body of 28 new emigrants under charge of J. B. Winn and Ephraim Bacon, reached Freetown in the brig Nautilus. Winn collected as many as he could of the first company, also the stores sent out with them, and settled the people in temporary quarters at Fourah Bay, while Bacon set out to explore the coast anew and secure suitable territory. An elevated fertile and desirable tract was at length discovered between 250 and 300 miles S. E. of Sierra Leone. This was the region of Cape Montserado. It seemed exactly suited to the purposes of the colonists, but the natives refused to sell their land for fear of breaking up the traffic in slaves; and the agent returned discouraged. Winn soon died, and Bacon returned to the United States. In November, Dr. Eli Ayres was sent over as agent, and the U. S. schooner Alligator, commanded by Lieutenant Stockton, was ordered to the coast to assist in obtaining a foothold for the colony. Cape Montserado was again visited; and the address and firmness of Lieutenant Stockton accomplished the purchase of a valuable tract of land. {2927} The cape upon which the settlers proposed to build their first habitations consists of a narrow peninsula or tongue of land formed by the Montserado River, which separates it from the mainland. Just within the mouth of the river lie two small islands, containing together less than three acres. To these, the Plymouth of Liberia, the colonists and their goods were soon transported. But again the fickle natives repented the bargain, and the settlers were long confined to 'Perseverance Island,' as the spot was aptly named. … After a number of thrilling experiences the emigrants, on April 25, 1822, formally took possession of the cape, where they had erected rude houses for themselves; and from this moment we may date the existence of the colony. Their supplies were by this time sadly reduced; the natives were hostile and treacherous; fever had played havoc with the colonists in acclimating; and the incessant downpour of the rainy season had set in. Dr. Ayres became thoroughly discouraged, and proposed to lead them back to Sierra Leone. Then it was that Elijah Johnson, an emigrant from New York, made himself forever famous in Liberian history by declaring that he would never desert the home he had found after two years' weary quest! His firmness decided the wavering colonists; the agents with a few faint-hearted ones sailed off to America; but the majority remained with their heroic Negro leader. The little band, deserted by their appointed protectors, were soon reduced to the most dire distress, and must have perished miserably but for the arrival of unexpected relief. The United States Government had at last gotten hold of some ten liberated Africans, and had a chance to make use of the agency established for them at so great an expense. They were accordingly sent out in the brig Strong under the care of the Rev. Jehudi Ashmun. A quantity of stores and some 37 emigrants sent by the Colonization Society completed the cargo. Ashmun had received no commission as agent for the colony, and expected to return on the Strong; under this impression his wife had accompanied him. But when he found the colonists in so desperate a situation he nobly determined to remain with them at any sacrifice. … On the 24th of May, 1823, the brig Oswego arrived with 61 new emigrants and a liberal supply of stores and tools, in charge of Dr. Ayres, who, already the representative of the Society, had now been appointed Government Agent and Surgeon. One of the first measures of the new agent was to have the town surveyed and lots distributed among the whole body of colonists. Many of the older settlers found themselves dispossessed of the holdings improved by their labor, and the colony was soon in a ferment of excitement and insurrection. Dr. Ayres, finding his health failing, judiciously betook himself to the United States. The arrival of the agent had placed Mr. Ashmun in a false position of the most mortifying character. … Seeing the colony again deserted by the agent and in a state of discontent and confusion, he forgot his wrongs and remained at the helm. Order was soon restored but the seeds of insubordination remained. The arrival of 103 emigrants from Virginia on the Cyrus, in February 1824, added to the difficulty, as the stock of food was so low that the whole colony had to be put on half rations. This necessary measure was regarded by the disaffected as an act of tyranny on Ashmun's part; and when shortly after the complete prostration of his health compelled him to withdraw to the Cape De Verde Islands, the malcontents sent home letters charging him with all sorts of abuse of power, and finally with desertion of his post! The Society in consternation applied to Government for an expedition of investigation, and the Rev. R. R. Gurley, Secretary of the Society, and an enthusiastic advocate of colonization, was despatched in June on the U. S. schooner Porpoise. The result of course revealed the probity, integrity and good judgment of Mr. Ashmun; and Gurley became thenceforth his warmest admirer. As a preventive of future discontent a Constitution was adopted at Mr. Gurley's suggestion, giving for the first time a definite share in the control of affairs to the colonists themselves. Gurley brought with him the name of the colony—Liberia, and of its settlement on the Cape—Monrovia, which had been adopted by the Society on the suggestion of Mr. Robert Goodloe Harper of Maryland. He returned from his successful mission in August leaving the most cordial relations established throughout the colony. Gurley's visit seemed to mark the turning of the tide, and a period of great prosperity now began." The national independence of the commonwealth of Liberia was not assumed until 1847, when the first President of the Republic, Joseph J. Roberts, was elected.

_J. H. T. McPherson, History of Liberia (Johns Hopkins University Studies, series 9, number 10), chapters 2-3 and 5._

ALSO IN: _S. Wilkeson, History of the American Colonies in Liberia._

_A. H. Foote, Africa and the American Flag, chapters 10-11._

SLAVERY: Modern: Negro: A. D. 1818-1821. The opening struggle of the American conflict. The Missouri Compromise.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1818-1821.

SLAVERY: Modern: Negro: A. D. 1821-1854. Emancipation in New Granada, Venezuela and Ecuador.

See COLOMBIAN STATES: A. D. 1821-1854.

SLAVERY: Modern: Negro: A. D. 1823. Abolition in Central America.

See CENTRAL AMERICA: A. D. 1821-1871.

SLAVERY: Modern: Negro: A. D. 1825. Bolivar's Emancipation in Bolivia.

See PERU: A. D. 1825-1826.

SLAVERY: Modern: Negro: A. D. 1827. Final Emancipation in New York.

See NEW YORK: A. D. 1827.

SLAVERY: Modern: Negro: A. D. 1828-1832. The rise of the Abolitionists in the United States. Nat Turner's Insurrection.

While the reign of Andrew Jackson [1828-1836] paved the way on which the slave-holding interest ascended to the zenith of its supremacy over the Union, there arose, at the same time, in the body of the abolitionists, the enemy which undermined the firm ground under the feet of that same slave-holding interest. The expression, 'abolition of slavery,' is to be met with even before the adoption of the constitution. But the word 'abolitionism,' as descriptive of a definite political programme, occurs for the first time in this period. … The immediate precursor, and, in a certain sense, the father of the abolitionists, was Benjamin Lundy, a Quaker, born in New Jersey. In Wheeling, West Virginia, where he learned the saddler's trade, he had ample opportunity to become acquainted with the horrors of slavery, as great cargoes of slaves, on their way to the southern states, frequently passed the place. {2928} Lundy had been endeavoring for some years to awaken an active interest among his neighbors in the hard lot of the slaves, when the Missouri question brought him to the resolve to consecrate his whole life to their cause. In 1821, he began to publish the 'Genius of Universal Emancipation,' which is to be considered the first abolition organ. The 19th century can scarcely point to another instance in which the command of Christ, to leave all things and follow him, was so literally construed and followed. Lundy gave up his flourishing business, took leave of his wife and of his two dearly beloved children, and began a restless, wandering life, to arouse consciences everywhere to a deeper understanding of the sin and curse of slavery. In the autumn of 1829 he obtained, as associate publisher of his sheet, William Lloyd Garrison, a young litterateur, born in Newburyport, Massachusetts, who, from the position of a poor apprentice to a tradesman, rose to be a type-setter, and from being a type-setter to be a journalist. The removal of Garrison from New England to Baltimore, where Lundy was then publishing the 'Genius,' was an event pregnant with consequences. Garrison had long been a zealous enemy of slavery, but had hitherto seen the right way of doing away with the evil in the efforts of the colonization society. What he now saw of slavery and its effects with his own eyes produced a complete revolution in his views in a few months. He not only recognized the impossibility of preventing the extension of slavery by colonizing the free negroes in Africa, to say nothing of gradually doing away with it altogether, but he became convinced also that the leading spirits of the colonization society purposely sought to induce the philanthropists of the north to enter on a wrong course, in the interests of slavery. Hence his own profession of faith was, henceforth, 'immediate and unconditional emancipation.' His separation from the more moderate Lundy, which was rendered unavoidable by this course, was hastened by an outside occurrence. The captain of a ship from New England took on board at Baltimore a cargo of slaves destined for New Orleans. Garrison denounced him on that account with passionate violence. The matter was carried before the court, and he was sentenced to prison and to pay a money fine for publishing a libelous article and for criminally inciting slaves to insurrection. After an imprisonment of seven weeks, his fine was paid by a New York philanthropist, Arthur Tappan, and Garrison left the city to spread his convictions by means of public lectures through New England. Although his success was not very encouraging, he, in January, 1831, established a paper of his own in Boston, known as 'The Liberator.' He was not only its publisher, and sole writer for it, but he had to be his own printer and carrier. His only assistant was a negro. … In one year, Garrison had found so many who shared his views, that it was possible to found the 'New England Anti-Slavery Society' in Boston [January, 1832]. The example was imitated in other states. The movement spread so rapidly that as early as December, 1833, a 'national' anti-slavery convention could be held in Philadelphia. The immediate practical result of this was the foundation of the 'American Anti-Slavery Society.' … In the same year that Garrison raised the standard of unconditional abolitionism in Boston, an event happened in Virginia, which, from the opposite side, contributed powerfully to lead the slavery question over into its new stage of development. In August, 1831, an uprising of slaves, under the leadership of Nat Turner, occurred in Southampton county. It was, however, quickly subdued, but cost the life of 61 white persons, mostly women and children. The excitement throughout the entire south, and especially in Virginia and the states contiguous to it, was out of all proportion with the number of the victims and the extent of the conspiracy."

_H. von Holst, Constitutional and Political History of the United States, volume 2, chapter 2._

ALSO IN: _W. P. and F. J. Garrison, William Lloyd Garrison: The Story of his Life, volume 1, chapters 6-9._

_S. J. May, Recollections of the Anti-Slavery Conflict, pages 1-90._

_G. L. Austin, Life and Times of Wendell Phillips, chapter 3._

_O. Johnson, William Lloyd Garrison and his Times, chapters 1-5._

_J. F. Rhodes, History of the United States from 1850, chapter 1._

_B. Tuckerman, William Jay and the Constitutional Movement for the Abolition of Slavery._

SLAVERY: Modern: Negro: A. D. 1829-1837. Emancipation in Mexico, resisted in Texas. Schemes of the American slave power for acquiring that state.

See TEXAS: A. D. 1824-1836; and MEXICO: A. D. 1829-1837.

SLAVERY: Modern: Negro: A. D. 1834-1838. Emancipation in the British colonies.

"The abolition of slavery, as Fox had said, was the natural consequence of the extinction of the slave trade; and in 1833 the act for the Abolition of Slavery throughout the British colonies was passed. The law was to take effect from the first of August 1834, but the slaves were to be apprenticed to their former owners till 1838 and in the case of agricultural slaves till 1840, and £20,000,000 sterling were voted as compensation to the slave-holders at the Cape, in Mauritius, and in the West Indies. As a matter of fact, however, two colonies, Antigua and the Bermudas, had the good sense to dispense with the apprenticeship system altogether, and in no case was it prolonged beyond 1838. … When Burke wrote, there were, according to his account, in the British West Indies at least 230,000 slaves against at the most 90,000 whites. In 1788 it is stated that there were 450,000 negroes in the British sugar colonies. At the last registration prior to emancipation, after British Guiana and Trinidad had become British possessions, the number of slaves was given at some 674,000."

_C. P. Lucas, Historical Geography of the British Colonies, volume 2, pages 68-69._

See, also, ENGLAND: A. D. 1832-1833.

SLAVERY: Modern: Negro: A. D. 1836. The Atherton Gag.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1836.

SLAVERY: Modern: Negro: A. D. 1840-1847. The Liberty Party and the Liberty League.

"Nothing affords more striking evidence of the gravity and difficulties of the antislavery struggle [in the United States] than the conflicting opinions and plans of the honest and earnest men engaged in it. … The most radical difference was that which separated those who rejected from those who adopted the principle of political action. The former were generally styled the 'old organization,' or Garrisonian Abolitionists; the latter embraced the Liberty Party and those antislavery men who still adhered to the Whig and Democratic parties." In 1847 the Liberty Party became divided, and a separate body was formed which took the name of the Liberty League, and which nominated Gerrit Smith for President, with Elihu Burritt for Vice-President. "As distinguished from the other wing, it may be said that the members of the Liberty League were less practical, more disposed to adhere to theories, and more fearful of sacrificing principle to policy."

_H. Wilson, History of the Rise and Fall of the Slave Power in America, volume 2, chapter 9._

ALSO IN: _W. Birney, James G. Birney and his Times, chapter 29._

See, also, UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1840, and 1844.

{2929}

SLAVERY: Modern: Negro: A. D. 1840-1860. The Underground Railroad.